Liam O'Mally

Liam O'Mally (1521-1558) was a Scottish courtier who served under Lord McKenzie. In 1558, he briefly entered into an affair with Queen Catherine de Medici of France, but he was later strangled to death for being aware of King Henry II of France's plan to take over Scotland.

Biography
Liam O'Mally was born in Scotland in 1521 to a family of Irish Catholic descent, and he became a member of Lord McKenzie's retinue, possibly serving under him at the Battle of Solway Moss. In 1558, he accompanied McKenzie to the court of King Henry II of France at Fontainebleau Palace in France, where he flirted with Queen Catherine de Medici, mistaking her for a lady-in-waiting to the Queen. When he discovered that Catherine was the Queen of France, he apologized and decided to return to Scotland with McKenzie and the rest of his retinue; however, he opted not to follow McKenzie and his men to visit a prostitute. Instead, he was strangled to death by Catherine's assassins to prevent him from helping McKenzie with informing the Scottish Protestant nobility of King Henry's plot to take over Scotland by killing Mary, Queen of Scots before she could give birth to a child (thus passing the Scottish throne to her husband Prince Francis).